


What We Were; What We Are

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:26:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Aaron and Robert break into Home Farm to try and find evidence against the Whites, memories of their affair resurface and passion takes over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Were; What We Are

**Author's Note:**

> From Robert's POV so is quite anti-Chrissie so avoid if you're not keen on his attitude towards her!

“And you’re sure your Sam’s not going to say anything?” Robert says, doorkeys still in hand and the security pad bleeping as he types in the code - _#1784_. The light flashes green, then off and the word _bingo_ presses against his lips. The security alarm had been his idea, after the break-in (the first, orchestrated one), not though that had stopped subsequent unwelcome visitors. Chrissie had been thrilled when he’d set up the system for them. Back then the code had been _0412_ – the month and the year they’d first begun dating. He’d thought that was a nice touch. So had Chrissie. She called him a big romantic.

“No, why would he?” Aaron says, hands shrouded in the pockets of his hoodie. “He’s family.”

According to Aaron, Sam had been a pushover when it came to borrowing the keys, just like Robert had hoped for. Aaron had invented some cock and bull story about Robert desperately needing vital account information from the office and with the Whites away for a long weekend in the Lake District, Robert could lose out on big business. Aaron had promised Sam they’d be in and out of Home Farm as quickly as possible and that Mr White (as Sam always timidly referred to him as) didn’t need to be disturbed from his holiday.

Now inside the office, alarms off and lights on, there’s still a dusty film to the place like there always is when a room has been undisturbed for days. The whole building has its creaks and groans – a history of mortality and misery – but Robert still feels that shiver of excitement at being in a place so large and grand. He sweeps his eyes around the office that was once his kingdom, struck with a naïve hope that the missing piece to him getting Andy back would be on the desk for all to see.

“What is it we’re looking for exactly?” Aaron says, a few cautious boot-steps into the room. It’s funny to Robert, that a man so soft and warm and purring in all the right places, can still look like a thief in this room. He only lifts a sheet of paper or moves a chair to get access to a draw, but Robert can’t help the flushed reminder of the thuggish sidekick that turned up here all those months ago. Reluctant, guilt-ridden. Gorgeous in an unnervingly unwelcome way. He’s nothing of the man Robert thought he was then.

“Anything from around the week of the shooting. Bank statements, emails. Evidence that Chrissie and Lachlan weren’t anywhere they said they were.”

“CCTV of the grounds?” Aaron says. He knows where the cameras are, where the footage is stored. He’d watched Robert delete hours of footage. Aaron arriving, Aaron leaving. The two of them in the grounds.

“No,” Robert says, trying an old code on the safe. Chrissie’s birthday, Lawrence’s birthday, Lachlan’s birthday – and, knowing it would fail, their anniversary. “She’s too smart for that.” Not even the date of their divorce finalising unlocks the safe, so he gives in, pressing his hands on his thighs and standing upright.

He goes for the laptop next, not the newest one, the one Lachlan’s probably taken with them but the one he knows sits in the bottom drawer of the desk in case of emergencies. It takes a few minutes to load, but he logs on with ease while Aaron rifles through documents on the adjacent desk.

“Not smart enough to change the laptop password, apparently,” Robert says. “All I need is an email, web history – something. Anything to prove Lachlan was right here in the house.”

“If the police find out we’ve been here, that’s the case jeopardised,” Aaron says, his voice breaking.

“It’s worth the risk,” Robert says. “If they can put doubt on Lachlan’s whereabouts then maybe he’ll start cracking.”

“I’ll take a look upstairs,” Aaron says. “I mean he looks the sort, y’know - to write weird poems or keep really morbid stuff.”

Once Aaron’s gone, Robert trawls through the web history. Lachlan’s logged on everywhere – his emails, his browser profile, gaming sites. He hasn’t learnt anything from the porn incident it seems. Although there are intermittent chunks of browsing time missing where it seems like he’s been on private mode. And then he’s googled Andy’s name, Robert’s name. Within a few clicks Robert’s pulled up the archived news articles Lachlan’s read about – Andy’s court case over Jo, about the fire that killed their mother, about Robert being gunned down in cold blood by his thug of an ex-lover. It builds two pictures. The truth – a disturbed boy fixated on knowing more about the man he’s framed for his crimes. The fiction – a boy tormented by the knowledge that his grandfather’s shooter was a man with a history of violence, who lived with them. It won’t help the police find out the real story. And worst still, he can’t find any browsing evidence that would place Lachlan in the house during the hours of the shooting.

He shuts down everything, closes the lid of the laptop and just sits at the desk head in hands, running his fingers through his hair and across his scalp. There has to be a way. She can’t have thought of everything.

He looks up, hearing footsteps in the hallway outside the office and the door opens.

“Any luck?” Robert asks, already knowing the answer.

Aaron shakes his head and closes the door behind him. “Some creepy sketch books but that’s about it. It looks like she’s been in there and just cleared out everything that makes him look wrong in the head. I even looked through his games. Not a single shoot-em up. That’s weird, right?”

“It’s all a set up. Everything an act with her right now.”

“We’ll sort it, okay? She’ll slip up. She’ll have to. And when she does, we’ll be right there.” Aaron shrugs one of his hands out of his pockets and lays it on Robert’s shoulder, spreading smoothing fingers across the heavy fabric of his jacket.

For a second, Robert catches Aaron smirking and then his gaze ducks and he pulls his wayward bottom lip into his mouth with his teeth. His eyes glitter darkly, like only Aaron’s can and he returns to a former position, standing in front of Robert’s old desk, arms crossed.

“What’s funny?” Robert asks, leaning back into the tilting curve of the desk chair. He missed the easy bounce it gives, the buttery leather seating.

“Us, here. Again.”

“Right,” Robert says, smiling, giving Aaron the inescapable slow-blink he’s so enthralled by. “Just like old times.”

Aaron becomes instantly fidgety, fingertips colourless as they press into the edge of the desk. Robert rises from the chair and a throb of anticipation slows his movements into something that feels like a drift, a glide. His fingers trail hazily over the volumes of papers and stationary as he moves towards Aaron.

“Were you thinking of a specific memory or just…reminiscing?” At the final word, Robert is behind him, breath wisping on his neck and hands so close, but not quite making contact with his waist. But just there, hovering, biding time. He can feel Aaron under his hands already, can feel the way his body will just melt into him.

“Cos we’ve got so many highlights,” Aaron says, a gruff little snort which should make Robert back down, fold under regret and remorse. But this moment doesn’t feel like it belongs in the now. It feels like it belongs then, when he answered to his body and he lived to make Aaron forget, not forgive. When he didn’t want to dwell and admit to mistakes. There’s a heat in the air, a pressure in his limbs calling back to the illicit thrills of their past. Of wanting to have things he couldn’t. He can feel it again – that metal band on his finger, his wife only a phonecall away, the devil on his shoulder. In his head. He thinks of all the things that they did that would have hurt her if she’d known. It feels good now, to know she hurt. Only now he wishes she knew everything and that it still mattered. He wants to hurt her all over again.

And then there’s Aaron standing in front of him, the velvet sweep of downy hairs on the back of his neck. A lightning bolt of a man, shattering a picture perfect world. Aaron was a disaster to them both, a knot of temptation fighting against whatever they were then. He was too good to leave alone and too dangerous to keep. They both fought that same battle. He was everything Robert didn’t know he wanted. Robert remembers those first flickers of attraction, drawing him in. A blood rush of desire. He feels the same for him now, but it comes in different ways. Sometimes it’s warmth - fuller and more intimate than desire. Knowing that this is for keeps.

But other times it’s seeing a bare slither of his shoulder blade at night, that he just has to kiss. It’s seeing him shower. It’s seeing him undress. It’s knowing they have endless hours, that they have a bed and a home. It’s coming back from work and going straight to bed. It’s muffling cries while the rest of the house get ready for their day.

Robert moves in behind Aaron and tilts his head so that the tip of his nose can run against the grain of his hair, so that his lips catch his ear lobe once, then twice.

“I can think of two very specific highlights that happened right here.” He runs his palms flat over the width of Aaron’s hips, the motion swaying the both of them together. His fingers flick and pull until the top of Aaron’s trousers are unbuttoned and he can dip his hand below the waistband and feel him through his underwear. Aaron takes a half-step back, Robert already accommodating the resultant slump of his body.

“Robert…” Aaron says. There’s a sense in his voice that he knows they shouldn’t be doing this on the White’s property, but knows why they will. Why the energy of revenge has wrapped itself around the forbidden lust of their past.

Aaron scratches the side of his face, his hesitance showing in his indecision about what to do with his hands. Then it’s as if his future leads the past, the Aaron of today taking back what belongs to him. He’s not the secret lover anymore. There’s a victory in his next move, the way he places his hand on top of Robert’s and guides his fingers straight into his underwear. They both groan with it, that first ripple of sensation of skin on skin.

“Do you remember? The first time in here?” Robert says, through hot, stammered breaths into Aaron’s ear.

_It had gone from: “You don’t have to get all jumpy whenever you’re here, you know. No one’s in.” To Robert shrugging off his jacket and walking backwards until he could fall gracelessly into his office chair. Aaron leant down with him, kissing and kissing until they were dizzy and out of breath. It was January. Afternoon delight. They had an hour, tops. Robert wrenched open his belt like a starved man. The chair could only support their weight for half a minute of kissing and heavy petting. Even through layers of clothes Aaron’s cock felt hot, electric. Robert wanted it inside him. He was going to have to book this hotel like he had been promising himself. The thought soon slipped, jerked away. Aaron’s instincts soared in harmony with Robert's fantasies and Aaron withdrew from the chair, lowering himself to his knees. Chrissie asked later why Robert had changed outfits. He said he’d felt uncomfortable in a suit all day. (He had Aaron’s saliva and semen on his suit trousers). And just after, minutes but feeling like seconds, when Aaron’s red was vivid and wet and kissed raw, when Robert was flushed and spent and balling a tissue in his hand, Sam Dingle barged into the room with a shotgun talking about poachers. Robert’s fury was scarlet, which only served to anger Aaron and he left before Robert could explain to Sam they were discussing the delivery of portacabins to the scrapyard. Business, it was a business meeting._

Aaron hums, he remembers he says and leans back against Robert, making their twinned movements deliberately laboured in time with his breaths.

“You stormed out,” Robert says. “I had some big making up to do.”

“You always do,” Aaron says and then pulls himself away from the leaning position and edges down his trousers, kicking them off as well as his boots.

Robert doesn’t let the distance between them widen too much and places his hand of the strain of fabric at his crotch.

“I was thinking of the second time,” Aaron says. His skin reacts in sweeping goosebumps as Robert thumbs the outline of his ass and Robert leans down to kiss the shiver on the nape of his neck.

_The second time. Day five of being alone together at Home Farm. Robert had torn himself away from bed to make a few phonecalls and keep the business ticking over. He couldn’t let Lawrence become too suspicious. He told Aaron he’d be an hour and a half, maximum, and left him to shower and wander around the many rooms of the estate. Two hours on and he was mid-way through resolving a crisis that had occurred with one of their most prestigious clients (a crisis he’d been oblivious to and one which might not have occurred had he not been working through the A to Z of turning Aaron on). He hears Aaron coming down the stairs in the office, dressed in a borrowed t-shirt and borrowed underwear. They were so snug, he stumbled over his words and made an excuse to hang up on the client. Aaron was understandably pissed off. “I might as well have gone home, sitting around waiting for you all day. I told Adam I couldn’t work today.” Robert said sorry and with his gaze firmly below waist, said he’d make it worth the wait. “Nice call on the boxers, by the way. But I can think of an improvement.” They ended up off, on the floor. Aaron was more forgiving as impatience folded under arousal and Robert had had a whole week, almost, to soften him up. This time there were no interruptions. Robert put the calls on hold and fucked Aaron against his office desk, surrounded by the legacy of his success. He’d never felt more alive._

Aaron turns around and begins to unbutton Robert’s shirt as Robert pulls the zip down on Aaron’s hoodie and tears it from his shoulders.

“That was good,” Robert says, stifling a groan as he recalls the intensity of the orgasm he had on that second time and latches his mouth against Aaron’s neck, kissing his throat and trying to pull down his underwear. “We should’ve worked our way through every room,” he says, breaking away for breath.

“I think you’re overestimating your stamina, mate,” Aaron says, working on the fastening of Robert’s jeans.

They’re breathless, forehead to forehead. Aaron’s eyes roll back, eyelids flickering as Robert takes his cock in his hand, splaying his fingers over the length.

“Are we really…?” Aaron says, resting his hand on Robert’s chest, fingers curling.

“I love you,” Robert says, his brow furrowed as he nods. “I loved you then. And I love you now.”

Aaron nods too, an “ _I know”_ on his lips, before Robert kisses away any response. Robert’s arm reaches out and sweeps a section of the desk’s paperwork onto the floor.

“What are you doing?! You’re going to have to put that all back, exactly as it was.”

“Fuck it. I want them to be paranoid, watching their backs. They can’t prove we were here.”

“Okay,” Aaron says, his black t-shirt creasing and smoothing in quick, tight breaths. He hesitates, watching on as Robert continues to undress. “You haven’t come prepared, I take it?”

Robert stills for a second until he realises what Aaron means. “Right. I’ll be back.” He presses a quick kiss on his mouth and heads for the stairs.

“So I’m just meant to stand here like this am I?” Aaron calls up after him.

“Yep!”

A minute later, Robert’s back, tossing Aaron a bottle of lubricant with a grin. He didn’t spend too long in his old en-suite although he was tempted to start moving things around on the shelf to see if she’d notice.

“It’s new. Still sealed, so it’s not going to kill the mood.” He grimaces slightly as he says it and then moves in to kiss him again, stopped by Aaron’s hand on his chest.

“Funny, you leaving me alone and naked with a photo of your ex-wife staring at me didn’t really do it for me either.”

Robert’s voice deepens, dark and breathy as he crowds into Aaron’s space. “Well,” – he says – “I think I can make you forget about that.” He turns Aaron around and kisses the span of his shoulders, murmuring into his skin. “I’m all yours.”

It’s worth it – the wait, the feeling of present burning the past, the sight of Aaron stretching, printing palms of heat across the desk. Aaron’s waist is slight under his hands, the blissful rhythm of his hips making Robert lose focus. It stops becoming about where they are and the selfish gluttony of revenge they’re both seeking and just becomes about the two of them together. When they both come it’s not about the forbidden thrill of what they were, it’s everything they are. The lust, the fire, the pain, the love, the sense of belonging. They’ve stopped fighting it, there’s nothing to prove any more.

Once they’ve come and Robert finds the ability for sense and balance again, he watches Aaron stagger against the desk, sweat sheened across his chest. His elbows keep him upright – just – until Robert pulls him towards him and holds their damp bodies together. The solid pulse of their hearts drowns the rasps of breath until Aaron prises himself away and begins to redress. He doesn’t look at Robert for a moment, keeps his head down and his back half turned.

“You don’t still wish this was yours?” He pauses, swallows and meets Robert’s eyes. “The house, the life…her.”

He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t even look around the room.

“No,” Robert says. “You’re my life. You’re what I want.”

“But this?” Aaron says, shrugging as he glances around the room again. The fallen empire.

Robert smiles. “In case you haven’t noticed, I like to be in charge – well – in business,” – he waits for Aaron to break the eye contact and he does, with an indulgent eye roll – “and I like money and success.” He moves closer to Aaron again, having just managed to half dress himself in underwear and zipped up jeans. “But I don’t need all this. I mean, if I could send that evil cow and her family to prison and take over the estate myself then…”

Aaron shakes his head, an all too fond smile.

“We could put Liv in the annex…” Robert says with a grin.

“And you and me could run Home Farm and-” Aaron says, half-sarcastically.

“Live happily ever after? Yeah. Something along those lines,” Robert says, running his hands around Aaron’s middle.

Aaron leans in to brush his lips against Robert’s. “First things first,” he says, casting a look at the littered floor. “You need to tidy up.”     

 

 

 


End file.
